Circle
by RavenQuill
Summary: Post HoO.  Percy has regained his memories, and Camp Half-Blood has been peaceful for nearly three years.  Unfortunately, recent signs indicate that the Apocalypse may well be nigh, but all anyone can talk about is Annabeth and Percy's recent breakup.
1. Prologue: Annabeth

*Author's Note: This story is rated T for occasional bad language, mentions of sex (though nothing explicit and no detailed, in-story scenarios), slight violence, and very creepy little girls. There are also mentions of minor OCs of LGBTIA orientations. Don't like, don't read.

PJOPJOPJOPJO

_A few times in my life people have asked me what it means to be a daughter of Athena, to live a life nearly dedicated to wisdom and to all that the concept should entail. Ironically, there is no answer to such a question, and wisdom has many forms: it manifests itself in the beautiful, philosophical poems my brother Malcolm writes, and in the gritty determination of Alice Paul as she starved herself for woman's suffrage during the early twentieth century. It is beautiful and ugly, peaceful and exuberant, just and demanding; it is so many things that I can't really tell you what the true definition; not even for me, personally._

_But I can tell you what it isn't. _

_The combined forces of memory, logic, and reasoning are often misconstrued to be the pulsating torso and its beating heart -the very whirling mind- that is symbolic of the nature of wisdom. To many, nothing can better emulate it, for what can be more ingenious in construction and symmetry than a figure of three dimensions and no exceptions? _

_But those who claim to understand the nature of wisdom (and are actually capable of backing said claims to a degree) also understand that the truth lies along other paths: those cold elements are merely the flaming sword Athena wields. Unchecked, they are nothing more than a sharp pain on a cold morning, and they cause more damage than good. Wisdom is not the abolished emotion, but the checked emotion. To destroy what is there and always will be would be the ultimate in redundancy; we must make from a situation only what can be made. A circle is a circle, was a circle._

_What is, is, and it is foolish to pretend we humans (or Gods) do not cry out in pain, nor tremble in defeat, nor love completely and blindly when it is most essential that we do, and then claim it is all in the name of Wisdom. Rather, I like to think that all things that are truly and irrevocably good are also wise._

_Though it took a particular year of my life to come to this realization._


	2. Percy

"Percy!" my mom says from the kitchen doorway. "What on Earth are you doing?"

I hold up a pan of freshly baked muffins while at the same time raising an eyebrow to indicate that it should be really obvious what I am doing. "Muffin?"

"Let me rephrase that: why are you doing this _now?_ You were supposed to be packed for camp by the time I got home." She throws her hands up like she always does when I manage to confuse her somehow. "Now I'm going to be late for the DAR conference."

"Actually, no you're not," I say, inverting the muffins onto a tea towel to cool. "Because I'm not going to camp."

She rolls her eyes. "Not this again. Percy, I know you and Annabeth are having a fight-"

"Not fight. We broke up." Two weeks ago. After three years. But who's counting?

"-_Fight_, but for Pete's sake, it's not the end of the world. You're nineteen for crying out loud!"

"Do you know how old that is in halfblood years? I'm practically forty!" I say, peeling off the bright blue hippocampi oven mitts Tyson knitted me.

My mom frowns like she always does when I mention my longevity, or potential lack-thereof. "You know that's not true. And it's been peaceful for a couple years now."

"Which means the camp doesn't need me. Besides, this has nothing to do with Annabeth. I need to take this opportunity to get all awesome and zen-like with my major." I hold a large whisk up as if to prove my point in a manly fashion.

My mom snatches the whisk out of my hand with lightning-fast ninja reflexes; no mean feat since I'm easily eight inches taller than her by now. "And you are doing a lovely job at the culinary institute, sweetie, but summers are for relaxing with friends." She shakes her head in disbelief. "I never thought a day would come when I would have to explain this to you."

I snatch my whisk back and begin to remove my squid-patterned apron. "I'll visit... just not today. Muffin?" I offer, again.

"This isn't about the hot tub incident in Palm Springs, is it?"

"What? _No!"_

"Because you shouldn't be embarrassed: you're both legal and consenting adults, and I understand you have urges-"

"Oh, Gods, the next time you're going to bring this up, warn me first so I can _kill_ myself."

She sighs, holding her hands up in surrender. Then her eyebrows scrunch together like mine always do when I'm worried. "I won't force you to go if you're not ready. But remember that if you ever want to talk, it's not unmasculine to share your feelings."

"Yeah, yeah, I hear that all the time from-" I almost say Annabeth, then shift gears lamely "-people. Did I mention I baked muffins?"

She smiles indulgently before patting my cheek and rushing off to her appointment, which leaves me alone with my thoughts and a moderately destroyed kitchen. I clean it up slowly, thinking on how cooking seems to be the only thing I can focus my whole attention on (besides slaying monsters, that is). One day, I ventured into the hobby only to discover the massive difference having complete mental control over water temperature and salinity could make. It was like a lightbulb lit up in my brain.

Annabeth said it was about time I found something to do with my life when, at the end of our senior year, I told her I wanted to study culinary (according to her, partriarchal society permits men to spend far too much time sitting around and playing video games). I wondered aloud if I had an unfair advantage over the other students, though.

"Not anymore so than any other naturally gifted kid amongst ungifted ones, Godparent or no," she said to me over her architecture book. "If you don't use your gifts in productive ways that make you happy, what's the point of having them?" And thus, it began.

A lot of stages in my life have begun with Annabeth, which is probably a bad thing, maybe even the thing that killed our relationship. It died a slow but steady death, too, from the time we had first gotten together.

_She's too stubborn. I'm too laid-back. She's too bitter. I'm too forgiving. She's too proud. I'm too sentimental. She wants to travel the world. I want two-point-five kids and an apple pie. _Eventually, we just sat down and had our first noncompetitive conversation in months, coming to the verdict that our differences set us apart rather than bring us together. She was stone-faced and strong, and I shed a few tears, but that's just kind of how we roll.

I throw down a flour sifter into a cabinet drawer, frustrated. The only people we told were my mom and Grover. Which means the whole camp knows. And Annabeth is already there, dealing with it while I hide here like a coward.

I'm a lot of things, but I'm no coward. "Mom?" I call out. She pops her head in the kitchen immediately, obviously waiting for my shout.

"I'll get your suitcase, dear," she says in an annoyingly perky way.

Am I really that predictable? Gods.

PJOPJOPJOPJO

The first thing I notice after dropping off my bags and arriving at the center field before the arena is the noise: laughing and shouting mixed in with a whole bunch of clanging armor and other noises. Then I see the fair Chiron has started hosting for new campers, three days prior to the Claiming ceremony.

It's pretty impressive. There are countless boothes, some for older or younger campers, all representing a cabin or an activity. Leo and his cabin are holding the rapt attention of some kids as they torched metal into beautiful designs. The Stoll brothers are using magic tricks to make wallets disappear... without making them reappear again. There are about two or three hundred campers running around, with more to come. It's a huge number considering how few we had during the war when I was sixteen, and I can't help wonder if we're about due for a disaster of some sort.

"Percy!" Grover exclaims, a little too enthusiastically, as he tackles me in a bear -goat?- hug. "How are you? It's been forever!"

"Grover, man, you can tone it down. I saw you last weekend, and I'm okay."

He scuffs his hooves at the ground a little nervously. "I wasn't sure if you were or not. You seemed pretty down then." Very true; he visited me to offer support while I was in a bit of funk. Unshaven, moping in front of the Food Network with the lights off doesn't really scream "okay."

"I promise I'm back in touch with reality."

"Well... alright then." He doesn't seem very convinced, so I change the subject.

"Great fair, by the way. I wish my semester hadn't ended late, so I could've helped paint targets or something."

Grover beams, since the possibility of the fair is due to his awesome leadership of the satyrs. "It's amazing! Wait until you see the Clarisse dunking boothe!"

"Man, take me to see that first."

"Tough luck, Jackson. Isn't happening 'till three." Said dunkee walks up, just as muscular as ever, despite peacetime.

"Hey, Clarisse."

She nods. "So, you and the Wisegirl are kaput?" she throws out there, blunt as a catapulted tree trunk.

Grover, mortified, bleats and turns a bright shade of red. "Percy! I swear I didn't tell her! I might've told Juniper, though," he mutters to his hooves. "And she may have told a few people, and... it got a little out of hand."

"Don't worry about it," I tell him reassuringly. We'd been expecting it; it was the same way the Hot Tub Incident had gotten around.

"Yeah, we're through," I tell Clarisse.

"A shame. Three years of trying to ignore you two and all your sap. I'd hate to think the effort was for nothing." Which is kind of Clarisse for "I'm sorry."

"Well, I'm afraid you'll have to get used to the idea." I shrug, and then I and wander off, not in avoidance of the subject, but to check out the fair, even if Grover looks stressed and Clarisse is shaking her head in annoyance.

And if I happen to pop behind Annabeth -sitting in a circle on the grass, giving orientation to new campers- it's not because I can't resist or something.

Really.


	3. Annabeth

*Author's note: this chapter takes place at the same time as the previous chapter, not after.*

PJOPJOPJOPJO

I usually greet the day by backhanding my alarm clock.

And aside from a natural dislike of mornings, one of the commonalities among children of Athena is to wake up with obnoxious internal reminders of why and what you should do with your day: rants that are along the lines of 'A mind is a terrible thing to waste!' and 'Do, or do not! There is no try!' and 'You will go far! Lucky numbers: 7, 9, 22!' I can't even tell you whether or not they are results of my own overactive imagination or whether I really do have dead philosophers picking daisies in my psyche, but it seems to run in the family.

Today's: _"The greatest happiness is to transform one's feelings into action." _It reverberates around in my head for a few moments. I respond by pulling the covers over my head. Seriously, Shylock couldn't come up with this crap.

And, in this state, I'm certainly not expecting any visitors.

"Rise and shine, Night Owl!" Clarisse shouts as she dumps my bunk and its contents (me) onto the floor of the cabin. I sprawl on all fours like a cat, snarling, though the effect is somewhat muffled by the sheet twisted around me.

_"What-"_ I spit, "is your _problem?_ Aside from inbreeding?" Clarisse just smiles like a creep.

"I just think it's a little nauseating to have a camp counselor in here _mooning_ over Jackson. We all know you little twits will be waltzing together across the dining pavilion as soon as Aphrodite cabin hosts another dance."

"I am not mooning. Mooning is completely anti-feminist. I am engaging in periods of deep introspection in response to recent life-change."

"In bed. With the lights off. In the early afternoon."

"Daughter of Athena. My methods are beyond your comprehensive capabilities." I pause. "And going to that dance was Percy's idea." Seriously. He even insisted I a flower on my wrist. How 70's.

"Just make yourself useful and get to the commencement fair. Your twerps are on the east side of the pit."

"Small?" I ask. With no major battles and no wars to fight, the satyrs have been able to find demigods at younger and younger ages, which means we have been able prepare them even sooner for the dangerous lives they will lead.

Clarisse smirks as I finally manage to unwrap myself and throw down the sheet with a grunt. "Microscopic. I swear, I was never that scrawny."

"I hear that."

"Shut it."

"Any Big Three's?"

"Nope. Though..." I'm sloppily brushing my hair when her hesitation catches my attention. I leave the brush dangling from the matted mess and turn to face her. "Yeah?"

"There's one I should mention. She's actually the reason I came to get you personally," she says. "A little first-grader. Mute."

"What are the details?" Every other year we have one camper who is just a little more damaged than the rest, who just isn't cut out for _surviving_, let alone being a hero. Sometimes, they're mute, or they vandalize, or they have some other quality that puts them either in a place of special care or in prison.

Sometimes, they're like Luke. But, sadly, it happens pretty frequently, and they don't always get the help they need.

"A girl. We put her up in Iris Cabin yesterday, 'cause she looks so much like Butch it's not like the Claiming will be a surprise, and she's not particularly gifted or anything. But... she likes to draw pictures. Freaky pictures."

"And Demeter Cabin holds "Edward vs. Jacob" debate on Tuesdays." With actual robes and powdered wigs. "This is just a freaky place."

Clarisse doesn't counter my banter. "You'll see for yourself," she says, so quietly my hair stands on end.

PJOPJOPJOPJO

To say my first reaction is horror is an understatement.

"I thought you said she arrived _yesterday?"_ I demand of Clarisse, who is also staring up at the far wall of the Iris cabin.

"She did. Butch woke up this morning and said he nearly wet himself," she says, her expression grim. Because tacked onto the wall are not a half dozen scribbles of kittens or rainbows-

There are hundreds of drawings, all depicting the same thing: black skeletons, resting on what I perceive to be red fields. All the drawings are crude, childlike, and horrorific. Most are done with crayon or pencil, but a few are painted and so fresh that the paint has dripped in a disturbing manner onto the floor.

"Chiron says the craft cabinets are completely cleared out. We're not sure how she did it. And that's not all." She murmurs, as if afraid to speak too loudly into the silence, and even her footsteps are light and wary as she moves to the girl's bunk. She rips off the bedspread and I grimace.

"Have all the counselors seen this?" I ask.

"Just us and Butch."

"Where is she now?"

"With Chiron and the camp shrink."

I shake my head. "What does it mean, Clarisse?"

"You're the wise one. You tell me."

Painted onto the mattress is a mural depicting a thousand black skeletons dancing around a gaping, red pit.

After searching the Iris cabin for more weirdness and coming up empty-handed, Clarisse and I walk to where the other counselors are holding the commencement fair -a start-of-summer event that helps new campers become accustomed to the idea of being a demigod (peaceful times actually granting us the time to come up with such a thing, rather than showing a cheesy video).

"Okay, I'll admit that was a little freaky," I say, breaking the silence. "But its not the freakiest thing to go down in this place by half; she probably just needs a really, _really_ good therapist." I begin to see about dozen groups ahead of us, moving amongst various booths and events displaying what the camp has to offer.

"You just want to think that 'cause peace has made you lazy and fat."

"What's that I smell? Is it... hypocrisy?"

She gives me a shove that would knock over a polar bear. "Your brats are over there. Try not to bore them to tears, or squash them with your cellulite."

"It's okay, Clarisse, I forgive you. Blind narcissism must be the last resort with a face like yours."

I duck under her retort and find myself peering down into tiny, terrified faces. There are eight of them, most with very recognizable family traits, a few slightly more obscure. All look frantic. I smile reassuringly, even though dealing with kids are more Percy's thing, and start in on the standard 'I will probably not eat you' speech.

"Hello, my name's Annabeth, and welcome to Camp Half-blood. Before we get to know each other and the camp, I first want to say that the purpose of this place is safety: you are safe here." This has a relaxing effect. Soon we are sitting in a circle, the kids looking around more so in interest than abject terror.

"Before I take you to the stations you see around us, let's get to know each other. One at a time, give me your name, age, and license plate number."

My lame attempt at levity is met with blank stares. Percy would roll his eyes if he were here; like I said, he's better with kids.

"Or," I add, "Just tell me the first two and anything you want to add. Let's start with you," I say, pointing to a girl who looks about ready to bounce out of her seat. Obviously a type A personality, she dives right in.

"I'm Tina, I'm five and a half, and this is Morris." She whips out, seemingly from thin air, a huge, green plastic T-rex. It's pretty badass, even if he is wearing a plaid babydoll dress.

"Why's he wearing a dress?" one boy spits.

Tina juts out her chin. "Because he wants to!"

"My name's Trent, and I'm nine," a solemn peace-maker intervenes before a fight can arise. Probably Hephaestus or Tyche. "And I like dinosaurs too." Tina beams at him.

"Me too!" says an African American girl with large, intelligent eyes. "And legos!" I secretly hope she's Athena, 'cause legos are totally awesome.

"I have some," I say. "And you can borrow them, if you like." She nods calmly, and I see a flicker of something familiar there.

But then, someone speaks up from behind me: "That means you'll finally have to take apart the London Tower, though."

Yep. Percy's voice.


End file.
